Santa is the coolest

Santa came to see the boys and the word of the morning from Jack was, "cool". Everything he saw, he said, "COOOOL"! I took more video of everything than actual pictures. Here is what the living room looked like when Jack came down the stairs. Ben's Christmas was there, too, but he was still in bed. He came down later and was only interested in toys after he had his breakfast. Unlike Jack, who hardly ate or drank anything all day because he was so "busy".

I had to add this picture. Sam spent over 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get this transformer changed into a car. I called it his nemesis

Tootin' my horn

I forgot to take a picture at Thanksgiving of my first turkey, so I made sure to take some shots of my Christmas meal. One thing that being home for both major Holidays has taught me; to cook poultry - whole birds. In addition, side dishes like mash potatoes, homeade cranberry sauce, green beans, dressing and, for Christmas, homeade pecan pie. I did it all by myself and it was all done at dinner time. Yeh me.

My Christmas "young" chickens (they were called -poor little fellas).
My homeade cranberry sauce in the process. I love the color.

Christmas with Granny and Grandpa Eugene

Can we just say, slacker. That is me. Granny and Grandpa Eugene came to visit two weeks ago and brought the boys their Christmas gifts. Ben got a ton of bath toys and sleepers and two outfits. Jack got the Shake n go Extreme. We had a great visit with them and the boys love their stuff. Here they are opening up their gifts.

New tug boats

And of course Ben was way more interested in the wrapping paper than the toys.

Jack's Artwork

I know it's not monumental, but I just loved this drawing Jack made of our family. What is so funny to me is I'm the biggest one on the page. He's the second biggest and Sam and Ben are the little, itty-bitty ones. I think it means that I'm the most important in his life right now....perhaps?

Daddy's baby

It's clear that I'm not the only one smitten with Ben. He has Sam wrapped. We both are so aware that he is growing so fast and won't be a baby much longer. He's such a snuggler and loves to grab anything on your face he can get a hold of and pull you close for an open mouth slurp. We enjoy it.



This is the cheek/neck grab. Not fun as he has quite a grip.

This video shows how he likes to hug.

Christmas card picture-attempt

Last Sunday, I attempted to dress-up both boys for church in hopes of getting some cute pictures by the tree to use for our Christmas card. It was alot harder than I thought it'd be. Ben wanted to hang his mouth open for every picture. Jack wanted to pout for the first 20 shots, and it goes on and on. We finally got a few that made it into a Christmas card. Here are the other attempts.

This is my favorite of them

This one makes me laugh.

Ben was sick of it by this point; falling back and squirming around.

Putting the tree Up - sort of

I really slacked this year and didn't take one picture of Jack decorating the tree. I took plenty of pictures after the fact with Jack and Ben in front of the tree and then later playing in their jammies.


Tree-trimming evening:
Trying to get them to pose together
A kiss from big brother.

Parallel play. Well, Jack is actually just laying, not playing.